The Rising

I'm big on Bruce Springsteen up through "Tunnel of Love" but after that there really isn't much that I've been able to get into, including this album. To me this is a good example of where this list of 1001 albums starts to show some cracks: why put the 12th album by a well established artist on the list rather than make way for a younger artist who was truly in their prime during this time period? Don't like many of the production choices. And to top it off, it's too long.

“The Rising” by Bruce Springsteen (2002) Nothing subtle about the marketing eroticism of the album title and cover. At the age of 53, he might have more truthfully pitched “The Falling”, or “The Unending Search for Relevance”. This album is almost entirely a collection of songs of love’s longing, with plenty of images of bells, blood, empty spaces, and anticipated journeys. A quintessentially American album. Released six months after 9/11, there are several references to what was on every American’s mind. In the aftermath of catastrophe, Springsteen endeavors to focus our passions on edifying affections, and he’s mostly successful. Musically, the album is well composed, arranged, and produced, even if the vocal and instrumental performances are less than stellar. I think I’ll always be put off by New Jersey native Springsteen’s poorly affected Southern accent and weak, overused falsetto. Melodies are all very typically Springsteen. On “Lonesome Day”, the post-9/11 sentiment of “A little revenge and this too will pass” was ok for the moment, but then the sad history of war in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, and the excesses of the USA Patriot Act emerged, and, well, we all needed some loving. Still do. Also, “Into the Fire” is inspiring, even if it borders on exploitation. Meaningful, nevertheless. So this album has some enduring satisfaction. Overall, a good album from an America worth loving, then and now. 3/5

Springsteen has some good albums. This is not one of them.

The Bruce Springsteen 9/11 album. Goes pretty much how you’d expect. It was a commercial revitalization for The Boss, but to me it sounds pompous, a checklist of every bad 00s (rock) production technique, and without a hook in sight.

9/11 had a profound effect on the music industry, and I don't think any of it was good. This is a prime example. Its awash with patriotism and self-pride. The music is simple and uninspired while being littered with a bunch of over complicated melismatic strings. It feels lazy overall. It's the shadow of albums like Born to Run and Wild, Innocent, E-Street band. I love Bruce, but this is not the version of him I love. If anything I feel like this still belongs on the list to show the significance of 9/11 in music

I got 3.5 songs in. I just couldn’t. I like his earlier stuff, but this didn’t do anything for me

Long, boring, and corny. America did not need this album post-9/11, I don't care what anyone says.

definitely not my thing

First couple of tracks I was into. Then it became massively middle of the road dad rock.

In my opinion his best album of the 21st Century. I acknowledge that not every single song is great but there are some classics starting with The Rising. Should have won the Grammy for Album of the Year but Norah Jones robbed him!

This is the Springsteen version of the shitty country that came out after 9/11. Obvious hard rhymes, predictable tropes in lyrics and instrumentation, corny turns of phrase. Further On even has him faking a country twang. _(´ཀ`」 ∠)_. A name for this genre could be "Boomer Chants" or "Boomer Feel Good".

My favorite album so far. The fact that this was in response to 9/11 is impressive. The songs were honest in dealing with the complicated emotions from that event. Not like some other music, say from Toby Keith which was just "America F' YA!"

Wonderful. This was Bruce's album after a long hiatus from music and even longer one from the E Street Band. It appears quite light hearted but there are some quite meaningful and clever songs in there such as the Rising, You're Missing and Mary's Place. I feel that these great songs are lost a bit in the more 'party songs' such as Waiting on a Sunny Day, especially for first time listeners. Nevertheless, I love this album but I did hope that the first Bruce album on this list would have been one of the earlier more accessible ones.

I've never really heard anything aside from Springsteen's hits, so this is my first full album of his. And honestly... I enjoyed a lot of it! In full honesty, I am grading this album on a bit of a curve, because it's a "9/11 album", and unlike all of the other jingoistic, bloodthirsty, and sometimes flat-out racist art that came out after 9/11, this album takes a wholly different approach. There's not a hint of revenge or anger on this album - its key themes are loss, grief, resilience, and strength through community. The title track and closer are flat-out gorgeous, especially when taken in that context. There are some very weak tracks in the middle section of the album, but I think as a whole work... this album needed to be made, and it does what it was made to do. 4 stars.

This album could have easily been an angry attack, but instead Springsteen sings about complex, nuanced emotions. I also love how a couple of songs have are inspired by Middle Eastern Music. Springsteens singing is also a lot clearer and less mumbled on this album. Great variety, mature lyrics, and powerful music. Overall, my favorite Springsteen album so far.

Listens: 4 Enjoyed: Meh It just feels disgustingly American, from the hope to the mourning. It feel like Springsteen just did a massive line of eagle blood. The fact it's inspired by 9/11 just makes it even worse, sorta just inappropriate. There are a few decent standalone songs that may be added to my playlist but the project as a whole gives a very weird vibe Would be a very low 3

This was after The Boss lost me. It's almost like he was profiting off of 9/11. He got something of a pass because he's the Jersey Golden Boy who was painted as the poet laureate of the working class folk. He has three timeless 5 star albums on this list, and another one that's close. The world over praised this one as something of a return to form because it was released (and for the most part, written) in the aftermath of 9/11. Don't get me wrong. I ride hard for Springsteen, even to the point of defending some of his work released AFTER this album. And this one is just nowhere near the upper echelon of his catalog.

Not his best work

L'album débute à ma grande surprise par une confession de Bruce: il deteste la parodie de lui même qu'il est devenue, et c'est la la principale information à retenir de cet album. En effet, depuis maintenant des années, Bruce nous explique être enfermé dans une spirale infernale, le forçant par exemple à déblaterer des atrocités mysogines et à diffuser des pets de façon importune. C'est sur une note d'espoir que cet album débute, puisque Bruce explique vouloir changer, pas seulement mentalement mais également physiquement, puisqu'il a pris la décision de raser sa coupe mullet depuis l'épisode de la guitare (voir review sur Nebraska). Malheureusement, le côté obscur de bruce va rapidement reprendre le dessus. Tout d'abord par le biais de courtes interjections au milieu de ses textes: "La bite !", "grognasse !", "pastis !". Ces cris parasites vont venir destabiliser l'auditeur. Puis plus on approche de la fin de l'album, plus le Dark Bruce devient dominant, jusqu'au climax, l'outro de l'album. Ici, Bruce, arborrant un marcel laissant apercevoir une touffe de poil sur son torse, va tout simplement lacher une enorme caisse dans son micro, avant de partir dans un fou rire gras. Bruce est malheureusement malgré toute sa bonne volonté probablement irrecuperable.

I'm sorry, did I stumble upon the list of 1001 MEDIOCRE albums to listen to before you die?

Bruce Springsteen and the world's highest-paid bar band respond to 9/11 with an album of blandly inspirational songs of patriotism, loss and resilience. Bruce pulls all his classic songwriting and production tricks, which we have heard a bazillion times before. I am sure this was meaningful to many US fans in the confusion and hurt post 9/11, but I feel like history has pulled back the curtain to reveal to hollow platitudes of this record. Bruce wants America to rise up from its hurt resiliently, but we seem to have anger and violence instead. We have is a forever war overseas and increasing division and domestic bloodshed. To summarize, Bruce produced a musically rote album full of empty and ineffectual platitudes. Wildly inessential.

I've liking Springsteen more and more in recent years, pretty much all his albums included here are great. Except, that is, this one. Really did not need to be included here. I doesn't have any enduring Springsteen classic songs, it's not stylistically daring or groundbreaking. It's exactly what you'd expect from a piece of post-9/11 kitsch. I'm sure it sounded poignant in 2002 so close to the attacks, but now in 2025 it just sounds drab.

Brucey usually goes down like plain oatmeal. This, however, went down like plain, dry, oatmeal.

Seriously dull

Springsteen's success is based on schlocking his ass off and miraculously not failing--half the time. This is not the good half. The music is so excessively bombastic it's bland and the lyrics so general they mean nothing. The man has four or five albums that should be on this list. Picking a bad one deserves extra punishment.

Album No. 0071 on my list. First things first: Bruce Springsteen is my favorite artist in the world. By far. He's just great, I enjoy his music, his lyrics, his stage presence, his personality. At least three of his albums are contestants to be my favorite album of all time (all are on this list as well). So I have a hard time writing a review about this album in an unbiased manner. If I try to do that however, I can't help but say that "The Rising" is certainly the Boss's weakest album on this list (a feeling that has not changed since listening to it again today). It does not compare to his 70s and 80s work. This does not however mean that it's a bad album - not at all! There are some of his best songs on this, namely "The Rising", "Lonesome Day", and "Waitin' On A Sunny Day". I like the more modern, blasting, polished sound on Springsteen's first album with the E Street Band since 1988. The lyrics are highly powerful and reflect the horrors of September 11 in a very graceful manner. Not all tracks on the album are as good as the mentioned ones; I feel that it could have been somewhat shorter. Removing a little baggage may have made the album somewhat better. On the other hand, you also have more modest songs that are still great however, at least due to their lyrical quality: "Into the Fire", and "My City of Ruins" in particular, which even have a nearly spiritual quality. I'll add all 5 mentioned songs to my playlist. In total, I'm conflicted and torn but still arrive at 5 stars. There may be some baggage here, but there are also some big highlights and Springsteen is very much able to transfer is post-911 feelings into a great, powerful lyrics that are graceful and express grief instead of hate and anger. 5/5 stars!

No one song in particular was a standout but the whole thing was a great listen.

Compassionate. Always welcome to the ears!

Powerful album; especially the context of 9/11. The length of the album/songs keeps it from being 5 stars, but it's a great album.

A surprising inclusion. More middle management than THE BOSS.

Quelle magnifique ode à l'optimisme que cet album... Bruce Springsteen se présente sous un jour nouveau et nous dit vouloir changer. C'est sa résolution pour le troisième millénaire. Et en effet, quel bonheur d'assister à cette métamorphose pleine d'espoir et de bonne volonté. Finis les coupes mulet, les ailerons à l'arrière des voitures, les blagues misogynes ou encore les comparaisons douteuses entre ses selles et des taupes : Bruce est déterminé à faire table rase du passé et veut que la terre entière soit mise au courant. C'est du moins sur cette note positive que s'achève la face A du CD. La face B, quant à elle, nous fait rapidement craindre une rechute. On entend d'abord un "vroum vroum" discret en arrière-plan qu'on soupçonne provenir d'un de ces fameux "concours d'accélération" auxquels Springsteen s'adonnait autrefois. On distingue ensuite un "clap clap" que l'on rapproche immédiatement d'un mariage indésirable entre claquettes et chaussettes. On est enfin stupéfait de tomber sur un morceau caché en toute fin d'album, soixante-neuf secondes de silence après la fin de la dernière chanson. "Vous y avez cru mes couillasses ?" s'écrie le chanteur dans un français parfait avant d'embrayer sur un condensé de flatulences et de propos inappropriés. Retour à la case départ pour Bruce.

Meh.

I've never really got Springsteen at the best of times, so an album from past his height that threatens to veer into Christian rock on several occasions was never going to swing it for me. Sorry Bruce, I'm sure this has it's fans but it just did not connect with me in any way.

looks like a graphic designer discovered blending modes. sounds like shit. it's so unspecial to listen to, it's insulting. and i like earlier bruce. I can't. 1

- ..... Bruce, you're better than this. How this record is included in this list I'll never understand especially considering the overall output of Bruce. The writing is so bad .... the production is SO FUCKING BIG .... just stop it, please. -

ele quis fazer um album porque um random depois do 11 de setembro falou: "precisamos de voce agora". puta merda galera, os eua é uma coisa mesmo né. dad rock para papais que vivem em um país hipócrita em ruínas!!!!! dito isso muito bom pra quem gosta. eu até tentei ser mais de boa nos outros albuns, mas agora acabou a paciência. vai se fuder.

A Bruce Springsteen album released in 2002 is one that you have to hear before you die? Oh, fuck off.

Meneer Bruce is voor mij het beste bij zijn bekende album born in the USA. Ik vond niks van dit album er echt uit springen en vraag me af waarom we hieraan blootgesteld worden.

Bland vanilla patriotic rock. It's more stereotypical than music made by ChatGPT with the prompt "Bland vanilla patriotic rock"

The loss of the World Trade Center on September 11 was terrible. But so is this album, for the most part. It almost just sounds like he's trying to stay relevant well into his career by doing a tribute album to the tragedy. Worlds Apart is pretty decent. But even at that point, I'm feeling like do I really have to listen to 8 more tracks? I just don't get the argument for including this album on this list--especially as I'm sure the list lacks of ton of great stuff 100% more deserving from anybody who isn't an absolute die-hard Springsteen fan. Seems like they included it out of a feeling of guilt--like "It's about 9/11 so we better include it." Anyway, there's a difference between dated and classic. He has older stuff that doesn't sound dated, but classic. This 2002 album sounds super dated. 1/5 not because it's as bad as some of the other art rock albums on this list, but because I see absolutely no reason it's relevant on any level.

He may be the boss but he's not MY boss. This was ass.

ehm sorry isch das amerikanischi propaganda uf steroide? würklich hard to listen to gsi, hans au nume 3 songs ine gschafft und denn de 9/11 song ischmer eifach too much gsi... schlimm wirds das de typ probably namal es album da drinne hett wo "born in the u.s.a" heisst guet nacht

A minute and a half in and I was Googling "cliffs near me". Somehow I survived all 75 minutes of this cookie cutter, country-tinged, pre-packaged garbage, although it took me several hours to get through it.

Even at the time all the circlejerking about 9/11 made me wary and in the intervening decades I feel like I've only been proven more and more right about how manipulative our government was and how much it utilized it to abuse us. Not interested in media glorifying that.

Ok wow. So this is the first album I’ve gotten, after 34 straight albums, where I actually hated it. The songwriting is so boring and cliched, the production is clearly well done but his voice is not mindblowing and it’s not horrible, it’s just completely unremarkable. Honestly I had alittle hope a few songs in cause I like the instrumentation of “worlds apart” but that quickly falls apart cause once you get to the self-righteous lyrics and boring vocals the song just fades away into the repetitive mess that the rest of the album contains. I’m just so disappointed by this album. It’s also super long with 15 songs that make for a nearly hour and a half snore-fest. Honestly if you remember how bad radio music/rock was in the early 2000s, this is just more of that. Just skip this album, it’ll save you an hour of your life.

This is horrifyingly bad. Holy fuck. Two songs in and I could not believe I still had another hour and a bit of listening to this garbage. Somehow this is Bruce Springsteen's 9/11 "comeback album", but ended up just being terrorism to my ears. Like the war in Afghanistan, this album went for entirely too long, was almost entirely pointless, and caused almost incalculable amounts of suffering.

Painfully generic country garbage. I don’t even really like old Springsteen so 12 albums in definitely not going to do it. I guess once you’ve done everything in your previous genre you have to do the country voice and talk about God. Why is this on this list? 2/10

What horrible, preachy, dribble. Sure, put this on a top 1001 albums to play in church, but not of all time. It's cool he released this as a tribute to 9/11, but really the song quality here is so basic and simple, with an aggressively christian lean that makes the whole thing cheesy and unbearable. His "Blue Collar" stuff from the old days is much more palatable. 1/5

Track 2 already sounds way too christian help - last one confirms christian ughh. Unfortunately, I'm inclined to agree with him when he sings 'I am the nothing man'. What is it with singers sparing me the trouble of finding good lines to roast them? I was also counting on a miracle to save this album (someone stop me...), and when Worlds Apart got into it, I finally felt something!! I guess I tuned in eventually (probably out of necessity), but I'm sorry Bruce, it does nOt need to be this long

Meh. Nuff said. Another boss album, another let down. Hopefully i will get some of his good stuff. Whenever that is. It was a frustrating listen. Just felt so generic. Felt like someone who is passed it. Which is fair enough, it happens to every band. But then i think, how is this even on here then?

I've had an irrational hatred of Bruce Springsteen's music since high school, but I was willing to put all that behind me. However, I think this was the worst album that could have been picked to give him another shot. I couldn't wait for this to end, three songs in felt like 30 minutes. This album is too long, and there are way too many mid tempo semi ballads. For some reason, every song on this album sounds like an album closer to me. I completely zoned out by the last 6 or 7 songs. This is probably closer to a 2, but this is the most boring album I've gotten yet. Why is every song between 4 and 6 minutes? This would be so much easier to get through if they were a little shorter. The list would have been fine with 4 Springsteen albums.

Bruce? You mean the guy who makes dog shit music. Yeah that’s who is singing on this album. This does NOT deserve a spot on 1001 album list. We all know Bruce. We don’t need this album in addition to other dog shit Bruce albums on this list. Bruce should have made that one Atlantic City song and then never wrote another song again. Besides maybe thunder road or whatever the song is. Morale of the story is I am ashamed to tell my friends i’m doing the 1001 album list just bc there’s a chance they’ll see this album and think i’m an idiot. 1 star.

On the list b/c it's Bruce's 9/11 album. It's terrible. As someone else said it should be on the list as an example of what 9/11 did to music.

This album reeks of the type of empty faux-patriotism dad rock that permeates most of these weird post-9/11 albums. Listen to Darkness on the Edge of Town instead

I had just gotten another Bruce Springsteen album a few days before this one. I thought that one was okay, but most of it wasn't my thing, so when I got this, I was not excited. I was right to not be excited, because I very much disliked listening to this. The whole time I was listening, I was waiting for it to be over. It made me envy the people who are okay rating an album after listening to two or three songs. This album kind of all sounds the same, and you pretty much know what to expect from the album after the first song. A few songs have a little bit of a different sound, but that doesn't make up for the sound of the rest of the album. The worst part was that this album is that it's 72 minutes long. I was excited that it was finally over. I'm glad some people can enjoy this music and the meaning behind the lyrics, even if I can't. I just don't get it. I guess my favourite song was Worlds Apart, but I don't really want to listen to anything from this album again.

Took 3 sessions to get through this monstrosity. So midddle of the road. So dull. So much longer than it should be. How is this album by someone past their best making non innovative music on this list?

Couldn’t stand it, sounds f’ing dated and cheesy, only gringos like this kind of stuff

I never felt like a tired middle-aged man while listening to an album before. Not a pleasant experience.

Come on, man. I’m sure even by The Boss’ own admission this is lower tier stuff. It lacks the zip of his Blue Jeans and Construction Work earlier stuff, and the gravity of his Craggly Old Timer Who’s Seen It All latter-day era. It falls midway between the two, zipless and gravityless. I found myself thinking that this album was probably what Coldplay would have ended up sounding like if they’d listened to more Springsteen. Truth is, it’s probably what Springsteen ended up sounding like after he’d listened to too much Coldplay.

Vi Springsteen... Se me hizo raro por qué un disco del 2002... Lo escuche de fondo... Rock totalmente indistinto, tipo estadio como lo que ha hecho toda su vida... Esto no suena absolutamente a nada interesante... ¿Qué hace esto en la lista? Lo escuche de nuevo poniendo atención. Todo hizo clic. El disco está en la lista solo por que es en memoria del 11 de septiembre y, al parecer, se ha vuelto hasta emblemático en EE.UU. en eventos y cosas relacionadas. En mi opinión, ni como disco de Springsteen ni como memorial funciona. Las letras más clichés y melodramáticas, con la sutileza de un marro se sienten prefabricadas para cantarse en un estadio y sacar una lagrimita mientras todos sacan su encendedor (Woke up this morning to an empty sky... empty sky... (◔_◔) ). Hacer un album de canciones tipo himno estadio sobre temas así son ejercicios vacíos. Una situación así nos recuerda el miedo , el entumecimiento, la confusión, corazones rotos. Ese es el territorio que The Rising, o cualquier álbum que busque hacer justicia a ese día tal como se vivió, en contraposición a cómo fue televisado, debería aspirar. En su lugar esto se siente impersonal y vacío.

Es un álbum disfrutable. Lento y plano para mi gusto. Los cambios entre canción y canción son muy similares, volviéndolo repetitivo. Pude llegar a la última canción, pero rogaba porque terminara.

It’s a big achievement. He knew if he was going to make a record in response to 9/11 it couldn’t fall short of excellent. It’s a very serious album but it’s not solemn. It has moments to make you cry and moments to make you determined to be a better person. It’s tackling very sad issues and yet it’s far from a miserable listen. The Rising gets better with every listen. Springsteen had to deliver with this one and he was up to the task.

Another classic by Springsteen. A cathartic collection of songs dealing with grief, anger, hope.

Does he have a bad album? Well -I’m not fond of Nebraska.

I think this is the Bruce album I've heard the most, or the one I'm familiar with. I've said it before, but my appreciation for his work only grows as I get older. Just a damn good songwriter, full stop. He's creative and loves to try different sounds (Worlds Apart) but doesnt betray his own message.

Thank God for 9/11!

I am a huge Springsteen fan. Seen him in concert many times. And I always liked darkness on the edge of town the best. But over the years this album is really grown on me. Now it’s really my favorite Springsteen album. I think just the messaging and the way he did it and the songs it’s just perfect.

One of my all time favorite albums, and honestly the one that got me obsessed with Bruce. An incredible album from start to finish, and probably the defining post 9/11 record. Highlights: "Lonesome Day", "You're Missing", "The Rising" and "My City of Ruins"

Superb!!

the more I listen to this, the better it gets. First impression was 3/5, second listen was 4/5, but I'll go with a 5/5 now.

Musically powerful. Profound and sensitive response to tragedy. Both specific and timeless.

My favorite Boss album. The last great one before he devolved into a raging liberal.

in the context of this album being a post 9/11 record. man its great. better than I remember. Paradise is gut wrenching, The Rising gives you hope, My City of ruins lays it all bare. geeze he is a great artist.

geil

Hrikalega þéttur og góður Brúsi, enda fyrsta platan með E Street band í 18 ár. Textarnir og uppgjörið við 9/11 þar sem umburðarlyndi er lykilorðið setja þetta svo á annað level. Verst að Bush hafi ekki hlustað á plötuna.

He’s wonderful and I appreciate his contributions to American music. He just isn’t for me.

Great artist - great album

A cathartic album for those living in NYC during 9/11, but also oddly current for our situation in 2025 as well.

Most emotion evoking album on the list, especially if you’ve recently lost someone you love. Possibly his best work that is often overlooked. Big words from someone who isn’t much of a Bruce fan.

First listen

That’s the real deal-love it. Definitely one of his best albums

Бодрый рокешник с фолком (и даже немного арабским), местами. Взбодрил меня, слушал первый раз и понравилось сразу.

There are very few albums by an upwards-of-a-decade past their prime artist that 1000% deserve a spot on this list, but The Rising absolutely qualifies. For anyone too young to remember 9/11 (a group to which I’d imagine 80% of the haters here belong - anybody who refers to this album as ‘patriotic’ probably thinks “Born in the USA” is patriotic, too, and has zero memory of the masturbatory “America, fuck yeah!” crap that had come out around then), it’s hard to state what a crazy time that was. People weren’t sure if they were ever allowed to feel joy again. I was a little young, but had I been the age I am now back then, I’m almost certain I would have lost friends or family members that day. It was a Herculean task for anyone to truly articulate what we were all feeling, but Bruce handled it with aplomb. I haven’t thought about 9/11 much recently, but listening to “You’re Missing” really hit a nerve. On a personal note, my first concert was seeing Springsteen in support of this album. I didn’t expect the nostalgia to get me like this, but it certainly did. I could recite this album almost word for word.

Bruce is pretty much an auto 5 star for me, but this is a fantastic later career offering.

Perfect album!

I’m at a 4.5 that I'll bump up to a 5. It’s not Bruce Springsteen’s best production, given how much this thing bites from the rock trends he missed out on between 1995 and 2002. It’s not Bruce Springsteen’s sharpest writing, but with the wounds of 9/11 pretty fresh, I can’t blame him for not digging into them too deeply, even for as much as he touches on it. It’s not Bruce Springsteen’s strongest album on the list. It is, however, the perfect album for the moment, by a guy whose voice & thoughts seemed especially needed. The Wikipedia article for this album says that “Springsteen felt compelled to record The Rising when, in the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, 2001, a stranger in an adjacent vehicle rolled down his window and said: ‘We need you now’.” I can’t say that guy in the car was wrong – these tracks do feel needed. Yes, by 2025’s vision of the world, the sense of hope & perseverance present on a lot of these tracks are a bit washed away by the bitter taste of the U.S. military’s intervention in 2003 and beyond… but for July of 2002, these work, and they work rather well. They’re capturing emotions in broad enough strokes, yet just malleable enough to fit the situations of a lot of people who lost loved ones in the WTC, Pentagon, or Flight 93. Even without the context of the attacks casting a shadow on this album, most of them are written in such a way that they just work, saying the thoughts that some people might’ve been unable to express in light of any grief or tragedy. I obviously have my complaints on the album – I think a number of tracks here are a little too “poppy” for Bruce’s general style & sensibilities (“Waitin’ on a Sunny Day” & “The Rising” come to mind). I think there’s a handful of tracks where going more acoustic would create a better sense of intimacy, pulling more emotions out of them, giving them a better impact (“Countin’ on a Miracle” & “You’re Missing”, in this case). Past that, I do think Bruce’s vocal twangs lean a little too much into the Toby Keith-esque style of country that was dominating the charts at the time, and while his vocals are never once bad, they just leave a weird taste in my mouth, yearning for some of the grittier tones of his 70s/80s stuff. I will say, though, for as much as I’m sort of ragging on the production, I genuinely did enjoy a lot of these tracks. There’s certainly something cheesy to late 90s / early 2000s rock now, but hearing Bruce unabashedly go for it just worked in my brain. Don’t get me wrong, I think I would’ve preferred more of an updated yet familiar sound, ala David Bowie’s “The Next Day”, but going full throttle into the 21st century like this just feels fun. I won’t blame anyone for going for a 3 or lower on this, because it is rather long, and it’s WAY different from anything I’m used to from Bruce Springsteen. However, it just clicked for me, and ultimately, I think it does what any good Bruce Springsteen album is supposed to do: evoke the imagery of the very best aspects of the country. Yes, that’s normally bookended with “whilst acknowledging the criticisms that come with it, and what we should be doing to fix it”, but for 2002, I’m not necessarily sure people needed to hear those criticisms. They just wanted a sense of togetherness, and Bruce provides it here without being overly patriotic. Never once is the flag held up high in the lyrics, nor is America portrayed as a bright shining beacon. It’s all based in a sense of community, like on the back to back tracks of “Worlds Apart” & “Let’s Be Friends (Skin to Skin)”. It’s extremely apparent on “My City of Ruins”, which works as a great closer. I guess I’m at a 5 because this just clicked for me like that. It does feel weird, though, as it’s far from the highest of highs that is “Born to Run”, and while I think I still personally prefer “Born in the U.S.A.” over this, it probably does pass “Darkness on the Edge of Town” for me, for having a more contemporary / familiar sound, like the music I grew up on. It's definitely got a chance to go down in the future, but for now, I'm OK with the bump up to a 5.

I grew up listening to bruce springsteen, but generally his older stuff - I was surprised to see an album so late into his career get enough attention to end up on this list. I shouldn't have doubted him though - this album is full of wistfulness and melancholically hopeful bangers. feels like daydreaming looking out the window - today is a rainy day which just made it fit the vibe even more. I know springsteen isn't for everyone - most of the top reviews for this are 1-3 - but this hit me right today. favorite song: "waitin' on a sunny day" totally a vibe overall: 9/10

It's The Boss. End of story.

I Love Springsteen and this album, while it doesn't have any of my favorite songs, is great. Exactly what I expect and want from him.

Good call here. I own this, and love it. Contains none of his iconic tracks, but as a total work, one of his best albums.

Perfection.

Der Boss liefert. Auch hier wieder.

I had to write a friend to ask why we thought "The Rising" as a song was so funny. Because we did. I remember laughing at it every time it was played, but I didn't recall the reason. As it turns out, it was because we related it to "rise and grind", and by grind we meant weed. After listening to the whole record today. I feel a bit ashamed of this. The Rising, as an album is pretty wonderful. It's like a series of contemporary hymns, songs that address a longing for community, for safety. Given that it came out only months after 9/11, the context for this seems particularly significant. From the perspective of 2025, my flippant dismissal of this record seems to be an example of the ironic resistance to earnest emotion that plagued most of my 20s. There are, perhaps, reasons for this, but the effect is that now, listening to Springsteen, I understand why people love him so much.

Co

The Boss

Springsteen's post 9/11 album, written and recorded, with the E Street Band, in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The album is a tribute to those who died, those who tried to save them, an attempt to make sense of what happened. The lyrics are a mixture of hope, doubt, fear; they never become maudlin and the songs are among the best and most emotional of Springsteen's career, certainly since the late '70s or early '80s. It retains the power to move the listener after almost a quarter century, rooted as it is in the human experience rather than the political world. Would that some of the war-mongers had similarly concentrated on the people.

Great album!

Exactly what we needed when this was released. Peace and comfort and courage.

I’ve loved Bruce Springsteen since I was a kid, but aside from “Streets of Philadelphia,” I haven’t listened to anything of his that came out after Born In The USA. When it comes to artists that I loved as a kid, I’m always hesitant about their later work, and I typically shy away from it. I think there’s a part of me that’s afraid that their new work might replace my love for the music that’s been a part of my life for so long, and I don’t want to risk losing those memories that I associate with that music. My childhood was pretty rough, but music always made me happy, and I think that clinging to Born In The USA is how I cling to those few moments of innocence that my childhood had. But enough trauma dumping. I know this album is supposed to be really good, so I’m excited to listen to it today! This was a great album, and it definitely exceeded my expectations. There’s just something about listening to Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band that I really love. I love Springsteen’s vocals, and The E Street Band just brings his lyrics to life in a beautiful and incredibly enjoyable way. This album was true to the sound that I expected, but the songwriting was wonderfully representative of a post 9/11 America. We were all full of fear and devastation after 9/11, and this album captures that feeling really well. Additionally, there’s a lot of reflection and optimism present in these lyrics, which is a thousand times better than the jingoistic garbage that was pumped out of Nashville at the same time. Springsteen’s music has always had a ‘heartland’ feel to it, and The Rising was no different. The arrangements were outstanding, and there was a great blend of instruments used, which the E Street Band played to perfection. As far as the individual songs go, I really loved the first five songs. “Lonesome Day” really grabbed my attention from the start, and it made me really excited for the rest of the album. The guitars, keyboards, mellotron, and synthesizers were all fantastic. “Nothing Man” was really beautiful too, and I loved the horn and string arrangements (I think they were done with synthesizers, or maybe they weren’t horns and strings at all, who knows, but I loved what I heard). This was just a very enjoyable and beautiful album to listen to, and listening to this has made me want to check out more of Springsteen’s later albums.

So, the biggest on land attack has happened on the U.S. mainland. (Let’s just put aside that it was less than a daily occurrence in the Middle East or Africa. Still pretty horrific.) How does the biggest rock star out of New Jersey deal with it? With this. It’s actually really good and Springsteen’s eye for imagery and his lyrical strengths shine through on this album. The image of the boots by the door is powerful and shows Springsteen affinity for working people. As he’s aged he’s moved to the personal and more abstract - it’s hard for someone worth 300 million to relate to working people but Springsteen knows the limits. He hasn’t forgotten his roots and his heart is with those who lost everything. One of the three or four essential Springsteen albums.